Good to see old faces and new
faces. It's good to be with you. It's been a long time, hasn't
it? You folks have done a beautiful job on this building. Some of
you carpenters, we need to get up north. We can't get anything
done up there, Steve. That's a bit of luck. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. And you're beautiful.
It's good to see you. Donnie's talking about him being
a Pentecostal. I remember the first time I met
Donnie Bell in a service with him. He jumped over the mourner's
bench, ran all the way to the front of the building and came
back and jumped over the mourner's bench. First time I ever met
you. Somebody asked me how long I
was a free will Baptist and I said, well, until the Lord saved me.
He was a Pentecostal until the Lord saved him. Oh my, well,
those were the days. Hebrews chapter 4, if you want
to turn over there with me, Hebrews chapter 4. I appreciate your
love, I appreciate your concern for me and my wifey, all your
prayers. It means so much to us to know
the Lord's people. or remembering us, I've often
said, a burden that I could not bear if I thought the Lord's
people had forgotten me. I wouldn't want to bear that
kind of a burden. Just to know that you're thought of and you're
in the hearts of the Lord's people. What a blessing that is. Hebrews
chapter 4 and verses 14, 15, and 16. Hebrews chapter 4, 14,
15, and 16. that we have a great High Priest
that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God. Let us
hold fast our profession. For we have not an High Priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted, like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in the time of need." If I had one thought that
I could leave with you, dear folks, this morning, it would
be some encouragement to pray. I think all of us need that.
One of the most difficult things we find sometimes to do is to
continue day after day in prayer. Our Lord knew that. He knew the
difficulty we have sometimes in praying. He spoke a parable
one time, a whole parable to this end. The whole parable was
to bring us to one thought, one conclusion, one goal that men
should always pray and never to lose heart. never to faint
and the Bible tells us to pray without ceasing and to pray always
it's difficult to come and pray I thought as you begin to pray
this morning how difficult it is to get up in front of everyone
and pray some of you men I bet have a lot of difficulty doing
that but It's just as difficult to continue in secret prayer,
in private prayer, at home or wherever we are. And so if I
had one thought to leave you with this morning, if I could
just encourage you to pray. And I found out for my own self
that when I can do nothing else to pray, to pray. Somebody said at least I can
pray for you. That's the most you can do for
me is pray for me. So I want us to look this morning
at just some things I guess that we're reminded of in prayer.
The Lord knows and he moved upon his apostles to write these things
and I just want to remind you some things of prayer. And the first thing that I look
at this morning here in verse 15 is to remind us of our weakness
when we pray. We think sometimes the Lord doesn't
know You know, I'm so weak. I have these infirmities. And
does he even know? Well, that's one thing that prayer
reminds us about. The Lord does know these things.
And the apostle here in verse 15 reminds us of this. He says,
That's the first thing about prayer that we need to remember. We are infirm. Our translators translated this
in different places. They translated it in one place,
sickness. Infirm means sickness. He went
about everywhere healing their sicknesses. We're sick, aren't
we? Not just our bodies, we're sick
in our souls. We often experience that. Another
place they translated it weakness. I was with you in weakness. I
felt my infirmities when I was with you. Another place they
translated this disease. They brought unto Him all that
were diseased. And as many as touched Him were
made completely whole." That's a problem that we face. We're
full of diseases. We're full of weaknesses. These
infirmities. We don't even know how to pray.
But the Spirit helps our infirmities, our sicknesses. Isn't it good
to know that the Holy Spirit moved upon this apostle to say,
when you come to prayer, don't let these infirmities discourage
you from praying. And they do, don't they? The
Lord Jesus Christ is not hindered from sharing us because of these
infirmities. So let's not us be discouraged
from praying because we feel our sicknesses, our diseases,
our weaknesses in our soul. Then he mentions something else
here. He mentions all these words and all of them are so full of
help for us. He mentions here to find grace to help. We have these infirmities, so
we come full of weaknesses, but then he said, we come to find
grace to help in the time of need. Why do we pray? We have
needs, don't we? We have needs. David started
Psalms chapter 12. He began it just like this. Help, Lord. Help, Lord. And I've often said, I don't
recommend that we just rush into the presence of the Lord and
so anxious, we should stop and address Him as who He is, but
sometimes we're in such need that we can't help it, can we? We feel these infirmities and
feel our need in our souls, so what's the first thing we say?
Help, Lord. One of the first things out of
that poor Canaanite woman's mouth when she come and her daughter
was vexed with the devil, Lord help me. Lord help me. Why do you need help? I've got
this need. This felt need. This awful burden. And nobody can help me but the
Lord. Help, Lord, help. The time of need, oh my, and
the time of need. Infirmities, need, and time of
need. I need help. Clarence and Gail
Poore, bless their heart, they've been such a blessing to me, you
know them. And one Christmas they got me this little plaque
and I set it right in front of my desk because I look at it
every day. Sometimes I just stare at it.
And it says this, every hour I need thee. Why do we pray? Because we have need. I need
help and there's nobody else that can help me but the Lord. Come boldly to the throne of
grace that you may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the
hour of need. Oh, we need a Father, don't we?
We need a Heavenly Father that remembers that we're just dust.
We need a heavenly father that knows our needs even before we
pray. We need a high priest that can
be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. We need light
in this dark world. We just need, we have our needs. And he says, come and cast them
all on me. For I care for you. I care for
you. Lord, how often can I come? Every
time you have a need. You say, I need all day long.
Then come all day long. And when we come to this Savior,
He is so full of mercy, you can just draw it out of His heart
and draw grace out of His heart in the time of need to help you. And this is what we're reminded
of here, first and foremost, that we're people of need. We're
people that are full of these infirmities and weaknesses. God
has taught us that, hasn't He? And that's one of the things
that we should be encouraged to come. Because the Lord doesn't
look upon us and say, boy, what strong people. How independent. Never wavering. We're not like
that at all, are we? We're needy, needy people. Then he says here in verse 15
that we may obtain mercy. See how full all of these are?
Grace to help, need, infirmities. obtaining mercy. What is mercy
for? Who is mercy for? It's for the
needy, isn't it? You know, mercy is for the miserable.
That's who mercy is for, the miserable. That's the whole problem
with the Pharisees and Scribes. They never realized how miserable
they were, how sick they were. The Lord told them one day, He
says, the reason you won't come to me is because you're not sick.
I'm a physician. I come to heal the sick. Go learn
what that means. I will have mercy and not sacrifice. Mercy is for needy people. Mercy
is for the miserable. I tell you, sometimes I go to
the Lord and I just tell Him, Lord, I am miserable. Do you ever get miserable? You've been tried. Your heart
is burdened, your heart is grieved with sin. You feel the working
of sin in your heart and you bow down over it and unbelief
that grieves you. You can't read and get any comfort
from His Word, any instruction from His Word. And one trial
comes after another and you feel like you're just drowning sometimes.
I talked with a dear brother just the other day and he said,
I feel like I can't breathe. I feel like I'm drowning in this
trial that I'm going through. Who is mercy for? It's for people
just like that, isn't it? Come boldly to the throne of
grace that we may obtain mercy. Obtaining mercy. We don't hear
people talking much like that to me in our day. obtaining mercy. When you and I were dead in trespasses
and sins, we just lived our life in the flesh. We didn't have
any spiritual sense. We didn't know anything about
the true and living God. What hope we had was a false
hope. It was a temporary hope. But you know something? Regeneration
changed everything, didn't it? When the Lord gave us life, He
changed everything. He comes to us when we're dead
and He gives us His life. But you know something? It lets
us see God in a whole different light. We think about God now
for who He really is, and who Jesus Christ is, and what He's
really done, and what sin is, what we are in eternity. We really
think seriously about these things now. And you know, that's one
of the reasons sometimes that we get in the fix that we're
in. We've been given life, but we see this death, this body
of death that we're still in. We're given the Holy Spirit and
He shed abroad the love of God in our heart. But we still see
we're in this hateful flesh. And it just burns us down, doesn't
it? But you know something? We've
got a throne of grace to go to. And I think one of the reasons
the Lord puts us through these trials when He saves us is to
make us continue to cleave to Him. You'd leave Him if you didn't
feel your need of Him. So He tells us here to come boldly
to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy. Here's what our text teaches
us. There is mercy to meet our awful need. There's mercy. What need do you have? Here's
mercy that will meet your awful need. Our Savior's heart is full
of mercy and He can meet your awful need. Do you believe that? Here's what David said. He said,
Great is thy mercy towards me, O Lord. Thou hast delivered me
from the lowest hell. Could you seek any lower than
that? The lowest hell and yet mercy deliver him. Come boldly
to the throne of grace that you may obtain mercy. Mercy for what? To help you.
When? In your time of need. I don't care if you've sunk to
the lowest hell. We cannot sink any lower than
these everlasting arms of mercy that catch us and hold us. You and I don't come to the Lord
in prayer because we're strong. We don't come because we're independent. We don't come because we're secure. We come because we're weak, because
we're helpless, and because we're wavering. That's the kind of
people that come. And don't let those feelings
discourage you from coming. That's the kind of people that
are told to come. He gives power to who? To faint. And to them that have what? No
might. He increases their strength. In the day that I cried unto
thee, O Lord, thou answered me, and you strengthened me with
strength in my soul. That's what prayer is about. Come in utterly weak with all
these infirmities, and we're coming through grace and mercy
that will surely help us in the time of need. It's when you and I are exposed,
it's when we're stripped, it's when we're emptied, it's when
we're left with a sense of truly what we deserve. That we're a
fit candidate to approach the throne of grace. A candidate
for mercy. And what is mercy but God not
giving to us what we deserve? And grace is God given to us
what we don't deserve. Mercy is Him not given to you
what you deserve. Brother Scott said one time that
he went to court with his son, and just before the judge sentenced
him, he asked Scott, do you have any words to say? And Scott said,
your honor, is there mercy for my son? And the judge said, he
don't deserve mercy. And Scott says, if it was mercy,
your honor, he wouldn't deserve it. You can't deserve mercy, can
you? Show mercy because you don't deserve it. Don't give him what
he deserves. Mercy, that you may obtain mercy. Let us come boldly that we may
obtain mercy. Is there anybody here this morning
that deserves hell more than you do? Has anybody here this morning
tempt God to destroy you more than you have? We've committed
every sin in the book, have we not? And yet what do we need? For God not to give us what we
deserve, what we've earned. Give us what we don't deserve.
Give us grace and mercy to help us in the time of need. Prayer is a stripping thing.
Prayer is a humbling thing. I wonder if any Armenian or any
proud Calvinist have ever prayed in their lives. Prayer is an
emptying thing. It's a humbling thing. It's a
bringing us to what we really are before the Lord. Nothing.
In our nothingness and our weakness. That we may find grace to help
in the time of need. What is grace? Well, it's our
Lord giving us what we don't deserve. His unmerited favor. It's God giving us His gifts. Help. Give me help. Give me help. You don't deserve
help. Oh, it wouldn't be grace if I
deserved it. Give me help. In the time of
need. It's God giving grace. And grace is God giving what
he does not owe. what He's not obligated to give.
It's God acting freely according to His sovereign will and good
pleasure to supply all our needs according to His riches in glory. Just emptying His heart and said,
there it is, I freely give it. And I'm not obligated. I'm not
in debt to you at all. You and I got out of bed this
morning and we came here to worship because Grace helped us. We opened
our song books and we began to sing, Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior,
because Grace helped us. What kind of trouble will we
get into tomorrow? We'll have to repent of something,
but Grace will help us. Somewhere tomorrow or Tuesday
we'll fall, but grace will help us up. Grace will help us in
our time of need. And pretty soon you and I will
be crossing the river where there's no lifeboats or life jackets.
There'll only be one thing there to help us across that river,
and that'll be grace. Somebody went to visit an old
dying pastor and said, Pastor, how you doing? And he says, my
ship is sinking and I'm throwing everything off of my ship. All
merits, all prayers, all my preaching, all my works, and I intend to
float to heaven's shore on the plank of regrace. Will grace
get us from this life to the next? It will. Grace to help
us in the time of need. And what is it that grace cannot
do? That's why we call it a throne,
isn't it? It's a throne of grace. Where
do you guys get the term sovereign grace? Right out of the scriptures. Come boldly to the throne of
grace. What is it that God cannot do
for us if He's on His throne? And what is it that Christ our
High Priest will not do for us since He can be touched with
the feelings of our infirmities? Oh, that's encouragement, brothers
and sisters, to pray. Come boldly to the throne of
grace. Our text reminds us here of something
else. It hints at this anyway. And that's faith. In verse 16,
let us come boldly to the throne of grace. Let us come. And what
is that but faith? Faith and coming in the scriptures
are synonymous. They're the same thing. He that
cometh to me shall never hunger. He that believeth on me shall
never thirst. He that comes to God must believe
that he is. Comin' is believin' isn't it?
When he says here, let us come boldly to the throne of grace
that we may obtain mercy. Believe in mercy. Believe in
grace. That's what he's sayin'. We come
believing. The Lord Jesus said, Verily I
say unto you, If you have faith, you can say to this mountain,
Be removed and cast into the sea, it will obey you. And all things whatsoever you
shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive. And he's saying here, boy, faith,
coming to the throne of grace, believing in mercy, believing
in grace, will remove mountains. Mountains of infirmities. Mounds
of unbelief. Mounds of trials. Mounds of heartaches. Mounds of discouragements. He'll
remove these things. Do you believe in mercy? You
believe in grace. There are people who earnestly
think they may not merit much but they merit something. They,
Jim Wilson was telling me, he was some foreign country, wasn't
even in the service, and he heard these people crying, and he looked
out on the street, ran out to see what was going on, and these
fellas dressed in white were walking up the street and had
leather whips whipping themselves. And blood was gushing out. He
started inquiring, why in the world would they punish themselves
that way? He said, they do it to atone for their sins. They
do it to atone for their sins. There are people that believe
if they would crawl across the state of Tennessee from the east
to the west, that would merit something with God. Surely that
would add something to their acceptance with God. God would
look upon that and give them something for that. But you know
that's not true. How are we saved? Not by works
of righteousness which we've done, but according to His mercy,
He saved us. Mercy saved us. Isn't that wonderful? Mercy had
saved me, or else I must die. You say, Bruce, I believe that.
Do you still believe that? Do you still believe that mercy
must save you? Do you believe in mercy? Do you
believe in grace? Yeah, I'm preaching to the choir,
I know that, but I'm asking you anyway. Do you believe in grace? I love that, the apostles' profession
of faith, when they were there contending with those Pharisees
and they said, here's what we believe. You fellas have got
your own confession, you have to be circumcised and keep the
law of Moses and do all of these things. Here's our confession.
Here's what Christ has taught us. We believe that through the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, through the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ, we shall be saved. Isn't that a help? What a help! Saved by mercy. Saved by grace. And how easy we forget that. And how does it affect our prayers? Well, we just don't want to come.
We want to wait until we get to feeling better, don't we?
Doing better. Oh, I've done so bad. I feel
all these infirmities. Until I start to feel better
in my conscience, I'm not going to come to the throne of grace.
Oh, how legalistic, how self-righteous of us. And aren't we guilty of
that? I never will forget a number of years ago, I was so damn mad. One of those dark holes you get
into and can't get out of. And I was sitting in the living
room, my little wife had put up a plaque. Five little words
on that plaque. That's all it said, five little
words. But it brought me out of this
pit and just lifted me up into heavenly places. I had forgot
what that plaque taught me. Five little words. By grace are
ye saved. Why am I wallowing in this mess
that I'm in if grace will save me? Grace has saved us, grace
is saving us, and grace will save us. Do you believe that? When it comes down to pilling
your dying head, will you throw everything else overboard and
say, give me that plank of free grace. Free grace will take me
from this sin-cursed world into that celestial city. Grace will
do that. Come boldly to the throne of
grace. Believe in grace. Believe in
mercy. Oh, goodness and mercy shall
follow me. I believe that, Donny Bell. I
believe mercy is following me to clean up my messes. Oh, to
forgive my sins. What a mess we're in. But grace is following us. We're
looking for grace. We're looking for mercy? Come
boldly. Believe in mercy. Believe in
grace. Something else, just before we
close. We don't come to this throne
lightly, do we? We don't come flippantly, we
don't come irreverently, because we're told here in this text
that we come to the throne of grace. We approach unto a throne. Not a throne, but the throne. Just one throne. That's the throne. The throne that's set in heaven
that rules over everything, every minute detail. The throne is
set in heaven. And that's where we come to.
The throne. You and I don't know very much about
being under the king. We got out from under that when
we fought. the British, and one of the words
during the Revolutionary War was, we'll never bow again. We don't know anything about
seeing a monarch on his throne, do we? John Adams, after the
Revolutionary War, he often said, y'all die before I bow to King
George. That's what John Adams was a
fasty fellow. And they, when the Revolutionary
War was over and King George had died, they set King George's
son on the throne. And they came to John Adams and
said, you've got to go as our ambassador over to The king,
he said, I'm not going. That's what he said. He said,
I'm not going. They said, nobody else can go. You're the only
man that we got confidence can go as the ambassador of the sovereign
United States and open up trade agreements and things. John Adams
said, I'll go, but I'm not bowing. And he described it when he went
and King George's son was standing next to his throne. John Adam
was peeping through the crack in the door at him. And he said,
when I saw him there in that royal apparel, and his countenance
was so glowing, he said, I was smitten. And when they opened
the door, he slowly walked his way up to King George's son. And he bowed and said, your majesty. If he did that to a mere king
upon this earth, what do we do when we come into the presence
of the majesty in the heavens? That's who we're approaching.
The scripture has so much to say about his majesty. Gird thy sword upon thy thigh,
O most mighty, and with thy glory and thy majesty ride prosperously. Oh, majesty! The Lord reigneth,
He is clothed with majesty, He is clothed with strength. I will
speak of the glorious honor of Thy majesty and of Thy wondrous
works. We approach the majesty, don't we? I don't know about these
fellas that write all of these religious sayings and put the
name of Christ on their t-shirts. Write it on the restroom walls. I tell people sometimes, if you
want to write somebody's name, put your mother's name up there.
Oh, I'd never do that. Then you put the king's name
up there. Him that sits in majesty up there. You'd write the king's name on
your t-shirt and salt it and throw it in the wash. This is
the majesty. We approach the majesty. Approach
Him in a heart reverence and awe. He's the majesty. This word is only mentioned four
times in all of the New Testament. We were eyewitnesses of His majesty. Remember the context of that.
when he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the
right hand of the majesty on high. We have such a high priest
who has sat down on the right hand of the throne of the majesty
in heaven. To the only wise God our Savior
be glory and majesty and dominion forever and forever. That's whose presence you and
I come into. And isn't it amazing? Isn't it
amazing that He invites us to come while He's seated upon His
throne? But be careful how we approach. We don't approach a mere human
being, an earthly king, the eternal majesty. What is it that He cannot
do for us? For ours is just something else
to us, in closing. It's the communion of two parties
that have been reconciled one to another. Paul mentions it
here in verse 14. Seeing then that we have a great
high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of
God, He is passed into the heavens. He begins this whole epistle
with our high priest coming down from heaven. And who he was,
who he is, he's the brightness of God's glory and the expressed
image of God's person. He's not like God, he is God. Nobody could say anything about
anybody being in the expressed image of God except it's God. He said that's who Jesus Christ
is. He created all things and He upholds all things by the
Word of His power. In other words, this is the Son
of God who is God and He's in our humanity. And what did He
do in the days of His flesh? When He had by Himself purged
our sins. Boy, there's the way He identified
with us. This awful, awful sin entered
the human race and it created this vast divide between us and
God. And God sent His Son in our humanity
to reconcile us to Himself. And He did it with so great a
cost, even His own heart's blood. He gave Himself. He suffered
for our sins. And the Bible says when he died
and says it's finished, he purged our sins. One dear man said,
and I believe this, he said, as we even weep over our sins
and as we confess our sins, there's only one way for us to truly
consider our sins is that they were purged 2,000 years ago upon
the cross of Calvary. Isn't that wonderful? And you
say, well, Bruce, how do we know he did it? Well, where is he
now? He's in heaven. Would he be there
if he'd have these sins still on him? God said, my son, I love
you. Come up here. Come up here. I
love you. I missed you. And here's what
I want you to do. I want you to sit down. Why?
Because the work is finished. And you're going to have all
of your children coming to you in prayer. They're coming for
your grace that I've put in your heart. They're going to suck
it from your breast. They're going to suck this mercy
to give them strength to help them in the time of need. They're
going to pray unto you and you're going to hear their prayer. And
heaven's going to come down when they come to you. And it's going
to flood their souls. The Father is going to come down.
And the Son comes down. Our souls to meet. And glory
crowns this mercy seat. A Savior and a sinner meeting
on the mercy seat. One has done the reconciling
and the other has been reconciled and they meet there together.
And the Savior is glad to have them there and they're glad to
be there. And their hearts are filled with glory and communion
with this wonderful Savior. Isn't that wonderful? Oh, come,
boldly, brothers and sisters. Don't let anything discourage
you. I don't care what you think of yourself. I don't care what
you've done. Come, because you're coming for mercy. You're coming
for grace. And the one you're coming to,
though he's high and exalted, he can still be touched. He's
just as approachable now as he was when he was here. And do
you know him ever to turn any poor sinner away? He doesn't
this morning either. And you may be here and you've
never gone to Him before. I tell you, He won't cast you
out if you go to Him. That's the promise He gives to
you. And you're His child and you go to Him this morning, He'll
hear you. And you can suck grace from His
heart to help you. The Lord bless you. Bless you,
brother Don.